Two positive messages side-by-side in Castle Street: on the left, “Stop war” by Nathan Bowen (ig | web store) and on the right “Love conquers all” by ThisIsLostBoy (ig).
Here are three more by Bowen in Belfast: one | two | three
The image of the completed work (above) is from October 11th. Here (below) is an in-progress image from October 4th:
Poster around the corner in Queen Street, enquiring about a piece produced in 2024 in Beckenham, south London (the reference to “Oct 10th 2022” is unclear):
“Free Marwan and all Palestinian political prisoners”. Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the group Fatah, has been in Israeli prison since 2002. He was seen last month in a video showing Israeli’s national security minister taunting the 66-year-old Barghouti in his cell (BBC | Al Jazeera | NPR).
This is a new tarp on Dee Street, east Belfast, in which a child asks a sleeping lion to “wake up”. Both are wrapped in the Union Flag. The (probable) context for the image is the idea that foreigners – and in particular, non-white, non-Christian, foreigners – have been moving to the UK and that over time their numbers have increased, without much notice, to such a level that English (or more broadly, the UK) people need to rouse themselves in order to notice and counter this.
We have a working principle that the level of investment in a piece’s production is an indicator of the extent to which the producer(s) believes it will be accepted (or at least countenanced) by the community in which it appears. This printed tarp is, as far as we know, the most sophisticated expression of anti-immigrant feeling so far (or at least, the most expensive to produce). Prior to this, there have been placards (One Big Clean-Up | Not A Dumping Ground | If Necessary We Must Shed Blood), a simple stencil (I Was A Stranger), a short-lived printed paste-up (Multiculturalism Is Genocide), and various appearances of “locals only” graffiti (2025 | 2024 | 2014 | 2014). According to a 2023 study from KCL, 32% of UK residents think the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is “definitely” or “probably” true, while 22% of Irish people (in 2024) think so (Gript/Electoral Commission).
Work on the “New Life” (New Life City church – Fb) concrete relief on the Cupar Way “peace” line (war wall) at the North Howard Street gates has been completed – with brightly coloured paints and a pair of plaques below the cross that read “The first 3D cement peace fresco on a Belfast dividing wall. Created by local artist Debbie Hutchings ‘Irish Angel’. The for the amazing help of ECC Builders. Created on behalf of New Life City Church. Dedicated by Pastor Johnny McKee with young people & others from New Life City Church from both sides of the wall. Thursday 14th August 2025. ‘He is our peace who has destroyed the dividing wall between us’ Eph. 2.14.”
The creator is Debbie Hutchings, a member of the New Life City church (Fb) (Belfast Media); the piece is on top of the ‘repent’ version of the New Life mural, and it contains scriptural quotations from John 3:16: “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotton [begotten] son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” and John 3:8: “The wind blows as it chooses, you can hear it’s [its] sound but you do not know where it came from or where it is going; so it is with the hearts of those born of the spirit”. There is video of Hutchings at work in this Irish News video on Fb and at the BelTel.
Work began at the beginning of April; there are in-progress images below from July 1st and May 1st.
“Tackle inequality – create opportunities – inspire change”. The large board shown here is in Cupar Way, near the security gates in North Howard Street, which are locked nightly between 8:30 and 6:30 a.m. (DoJ). These and the nearby Northumberland Street gates separate the lower Falls and the middle Shankill, including the young people from the Active Communities Network (web), a cross-community youth group that lobbied for increased opening hours to allow members to return home quickly after meetings (BBC).
“Bi herri, borroka bat – ETA [Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, a Basque separatist group]” – “Two peoples, one struggle”, in Basque, on the side of the Falls library in Sevastopol Street.
“Gaza genocide 186,000+” This is a small stencil on the Glen Molloy piece in North Street, perhaps in reference to the number of casualties in Gaza (Al Jazeera youtube) to which should be added more than 60,000 deaths (Derry mural on Paddy Duffy’s site).
Michael Devine was the last of the 1981 hunger-strikers to die, on August 20th, 1981, and although the strike was not called off until October 3rd, his death now marks the end of the strike for commemorative purposes. The 44th annual national commemoration of the strike will take place this year on the 24th, “assembling at Dunville Park” in west Belfast.
Antrim Rd/New Lodge Rd, north Belfast. For the street art on the electrical box, see Rotten And Corrupt.
Extramural Activity 